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Coaching shoe has always been a snug fit for Bishop Ludden's Pat Donnelly

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Bishop Ludden boys basketball coach Pat Donnelly talks to his players before a 2010 sectional semifinal game against Nottingham. Donnelly has been a high school head coach for 34 years, 26 of them at Ludden.
(Photo by Jim Commentucci | The Post-Standard)

Syracuse, NY - Pat Donnelly was angry and looking to get his team’s attention.

It was in the late 1990s, he recalls, at halftime of a Christmas tournament game at Bishop Ludden High School.

“I wanted to make a statement,” the Gaelic Knights coach said. “I was going to kick this cardboard box across the locker room.”

Having found his target, Donnelly put his foot into it – but the box didn’t go careening across the silent locker room. Instead, his shoe went through the cardboard and the box became stuck on his foot. He had to take off his shoe to remove it.

Two of his assistants quickly left the locker room and went out in the hallway. Several players clamped a hand over their mouths to stifle laughter.

“I said, ‘If anybody laughs I’m going to kill you,’ “

One of Central New York’s longest-tenured coaches will be in Glens Falls on March 17, whether his team returnst to the state tournament or not.

Pat Donnelly was the Post-Standard's All-CNY Coach of the Year for the 2011-12 season, when his team won a state Class B boys basketball championship. Frank Ordonez | The Post-Standard

Donnelly, 54, will be inducted into the New York State Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame in a 10 a.m. ceremony at the Glens Falls Civic Center. It will be the second hall of fame he joins in the past year. In June, Donnelly was one of eight new inductees in the Greater Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame.

“It doesn’t seem possible,” said Donnelly, a 1976 Ludden graduate who is completing his 34th year of coaching – 26 of those at his alma mater.

Counting this year’s 18-2 mark, Donnelly is 473-206 for his career, which includes eight years at East Syracuse-Minoa before he took over for his former high school coach, Jerry Wilcox, at Ludden in 1987.

Donnelly has led the Gaelic Knights to two state championships – one in 1994 and another last spring. His current team plays New Hartford on Sunday at the Carrier Dome for the Class A sectional title. If Ludden wins it will be Donnelly’s 10th Section III crown.
Wilcox, now retired, said Donnelly alway had a “great mind for the game.”

Even though he was a tall kid back in the 70s, Wilcox had Donnelly play the point and run his offense.

“He was a heads-up player,” said Wilcox, who also is in the state hall of fame. “Pat ran the show. He had good floor savvy.”

Donnelly went to college at Potsdam State, where he played for yet another state coaching hall of famer in Jerry Welsh.

The longtime National Grid employee said playing for two great coaches helped shape who he became. Having some good players helped, too.

Donnelly has been known to get irate on the sidelines. And he’s intense in the huddle with his players during games.

“It’s not personal,” he said. “My thing with the players is – if I’m not yelling at you, then you should worry.”

Asked if there’s been a low light in his career, Donnelly is quick to respond.

It’s the February 2008 stabbing death of Wes Valentine, a former Ludden player who had graduated the previous spring.

“Nothing touches that,” he said. “He was a good young man.”

Donnelly said much of the credit for his coaching longevity goes to Laurie Donnelly, his wife of 27 years, who acts more like a general manager for the team – running the Ludden concession stand, washing uniforms and sometimes feeding the players.

“She gets to sit in the stands sometimes and hear all of the great things they say about me,” he said, adding that his wife knows quite a bit about the game and occasionally slips him a little well-timed advice.

“She really does keep me right down the middle,” he said.

By the way, Donnelly's team went on to win the game after his shoe-in-the-box trick at halftime.

"It kind of loosened things up," he said.

But the coach said he has refrained from kicking boxes since.

Note – Tickets for the New York State Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame cost $25. The ceremonial brunch is 10 a.m. March 17 at Heritage Hall in the Glens Falls Civic Center. For tickets, call Jerry Wilcox (422-6340) or Gallagher Driscoll (468-2591).